World's War Events Volume I Part 1

World's War Events.

Vol. I.

by Various.

WHAT CAUSED THE WAR

BARON BEYENS

The National Review, June, 1916.

I

[Sidenote: Political designs of Francis Ferdinand.]

The Archduke Francis Ferdinand will go down to posterity without having yielded up his secret. Great political designs have been ascribed to him, mainly on the strength of his friendship with William II. What do we really know about him? He was strong-willed and obstinate, very Clerical, very Austrian, disliking the Hungarians to such an extent that he kept their statesmen at arm's-length, and having no love for Italy.

He has been credited with sympathies towards the Slav elements of the Empire; it has been a.s.serted that he dreamt of setting up, in place of the dual monarchy, a "triune State," in which the third factor would have been made up for the most part of Slav provinces carved out of the Kingdom of St. Stephen. Immediately after he had been murdered, the _Vossische Zeitung_ refuted this theory with arguments which seemed to me thoroughly sound.

The Archduke, said the Berlin newspaper, was too keen-witted not to see that he would thus be creating two rivals for Austria instead of one, and that the Serb populations would come within the orbit of Belgrade rather than of Vienna. Serbia would become the Piedmont of the Balkans; she would draw to herself the Slavs of the Danube valley by a process of crystallization similar to that which brought about Italian unity.

[Sidenote: Army and Navy reorganized.]

From year to year the Archduke had acquired more and more weight in the governance of the Empire, in proportion as his uncle's will grew weaker beneath the burden of advancing age. Thus he had succeeded in his efforts to provide Austria-Hungary with a new navy, the counterpart, on a more modest scale, of the German fleet, and to reorganize the effective army, here again taking Germany for his model. Among certain cliques, he was accused of not keeping enough in the background, of showing little tact or consideration in the manner of thrusting aside the phantom Emperor, who was gently gliding into the winter of the years at Schonbrunn amid the veneration of his subjects of every race.

Another charge was that he appointed too many of his creatures to important civil and military posts.

[Sidenote: Antagonism of Russia and Austria.]

We may well believe that this prince, observing the gradual decay of the monarchy, tried to restore its vigour, and that his first thought was to hold with a firm grasp, even before a.s.suming the Imperial crown, the cl.u.s.ter of nationalities, mutually hostile and always discontented, that go to make up the Dual Empire. So far as foreign relations are concerned, we may a.s.sume that he was bent on winning her a place in the first rank of Powers; that he wished, above all, to see her predominant all along the Danube and in the Balkans; that he even aimed at giving her the road to Salonika and the Levant, though it were at the price of a collision with Russia. This antagonism between the two neighbour Empires must have often been among the topics of his conversations with William II.

The Archduke needed military glory, prestige won on the battle-field, in order to seat his consort firmly on the throne and make his children heirs to the Caesars. He had been suspected, both in Austria and abroad, of not wishing to observe the family compact which he had signed at the time of his marriage with Countess Sophie Chotek. It was thought that he perhaps reserved the right to declare it null and void, in view of the constraint that had been put upon him. The successive honours that had drawn the d.u.c.h.ess of Hohenberg from the obscurity in which the morganatic wife of a German prince is usually wrapped, and had brought her near to the steps of the throne, showed clearly that her rise would not stop half-way.

[Sidenote: Domestic life of the Archduke.]

The Archduke, like William II himself, was reputed to be an exemplary father and husband. He was one of those princes who adore their own children, but, under the spur of political ambition, are very p.r.o.ne to send the children of others to the shambles. A fine theme for Socialist and Republican preachers to enlarge upon!

I often met the heir to the Imperial crown, especially at Vienna in 1910, where I had the honour of accompanying my Sovereign, and two years later at Munich, the Prince Regent's funeral.

On each occasion this Hapsburg, with his heavy features, his scowling expression, and his rather corpulent figure (quite different from the slim build characteristic of his line), struck me as a singular type.

His face was certainly not sympathetic, nor was his manner engaging. The d.u.c.h.ess of Hohenberg, whom, after having known her as a little girl when her father was Austrian Minister at Brussels, I found gracefully doing the honours in the Belvedere Palace, had retained in her high station the genial simplicity of the Chotek family. This probably did not prevent her from cherishing the loftiest ambitions for herself, and above all for her eldest son, and from coveting the glory of the double crown.

II

[Sidenote: a.s.sa.s.sination of Francis Ferdinand.]

The news that an a.s.sa.s.sin's hand had struck down the Archduke and his wife, inseparable even in death, burst upon Berlin on the afternoon of Sunday, June 28, like an unexpected thunderclap in the midst of a calm summer's day. I went over at once to the Austro-Hungarian Emba.s.sy, in order to express all the horror that I felt at this savage drama. Count Szogyen, the senior member of the diplomatic corps, was on the eve of resigning the post that he had held for twenty years, honoured by all his colleagues. It was whispered that his removal had been asked for by the Archduke, who was anxious to introduce young blood into the diplomatic service. I found the Amba.s.sador quite overcome by the terrible news. He seemed stricken with grief at the thought of his aged Sovereign, who had already lost so many of his nearest and dearest, and of the Dual Empire, robbed of its most skillful pilot, and with no one to steer it now but an octogenarian leaning on a youth of twenty-six. M.

Cambon had come to the Emba.s.sy at the same time, and we left together discussing the results, still impossible to foresee clearly, that this fatality might have for European affairs.

[Sidenote: Serajevo tragedy a menace.]

From the very next day the tone of the Berlin Press, in commenting on the Serajevo tragedy, was full of menace. It expected the Vienna Cabinet to send to Belgrade an immediate request for satisfaction, if Serbian subjects, as it was believed, were among those who had devised and carried out the plot. But how far would this satisfaction go, and in what form would it be demanded? There was the rub. The report, issued by the semi-official _Lokalanzeiger_, of a pressure exerted by the Austro-Hungarian Minister, with a view to making the Serbian Government inst.i.tute proceedings against the anarchist societies of which the Archduke and his wife had been the victims, surprised no one, but was not confirmed. On the other hand, a softer breeze soon blew from Vienna and Budapest, and under its influence the excitement of the Berlin newspapers suddenly abated. An order seemed to have been issued: the rage and fl.u.s.ter of the public were to be allowed to cool down. The Austro-Hungarian Government, so we were informed by the news agencies, were quietly taking steps to prosecute the murderers. Count Berchtold, in speaking to the diplomatic corps at Vienna, and Count Tisza, in addressing Parliament at Budapest, used rea.s.suring language, which raised hopes of a peaceful solution.

[Sidenote: Opinion is moderate in Berlin.]

The Wilhelmstra.s.se also expressed itself in very measured terms on the guarantees that would be demanded from Serbia. Herr Zimmermann, without knowing (so he said to me) what decision had been arrived at in Vienna, thought that no action would be taken in Belgrade until the Austro-Hungarian Government had collected the proofs of the complicity of Serbian subjects or societies in the planning of the Serajevo crime.

He had made a similar statement to the Russian Amba.s.sador, who had hastened to impart to him his fears for the peace of Europe, in the event of any attempt to coerce Serbia into proceeding against the secret societies, if they were accused of intrigues against the Austrian Government in Bosnia and Croatia. Herr Zimmermann declared to M.

Sverbeeff that, in his opinion, no better advice could be given to the Serbian Government than this: that it should put a stop to the nefarious work of these societies and punish the accomplices of the Archduke's a.s.sa.s.sins. The moderation of this remark fairly reflected the general state of public opinion in Berlin.

[Sidenote: Kaiser William's opinion.]

But what of the Emperor, the Archduke's personal friend? Would not his grief and anger find voice in ringing tones? All eyes were turned towards Kiel, where the fatal news reached William II while he was taking part in a yacht race on board his own clipper. He turned pale, and was heard to murmur: "So my work of the past twenty-five years will have to be started all over again!" Enigmatic words which may be interpreted in various ways! To the British Amba.s.sador, who was also at Kiel, with the British squadron returning from the Baltic, he unburdened himself in more explicit fashion: "Es ist ein Verbrechen gegen das Deutschtum" ("It is a crime against Germanity"). By this he probably meant that Germany, feeling her own interests a.s.sailed by the Serajevo crime, would make common cause with Austria to exact a full retribution.

With more self-control than usual, however, he abstained from all further public utterances on the subject.

It had been announced that he would go to Vienna to attend the Archduke's funeral. What were the motives that prevented him from offering to the dead man this last token of a friendship which, at first merely political, had become genuine and even tender, with a touch of patronage characteristic of the Emperor?

[Sidenote: William II not at the funeral.]

He excused himself on the ground of some slight ailment. The truth is, no doubt, that he was disgusted with the wretched stickling for etiquette shown by the Grand Chamberlain of the Viennese Court, the Prince di Montenuovo, who refused to celebrate with fitting splendour the obsequies of the late heir apparent and his morganatic wife. Under these circ.u.mstances, Vienna could have no desire either for the presence of William II or for his criticisms.

[Sidenote: The Kaiser goes to Norway.]

At the beginning of July, the Emperor left for his accustomed cruise along the Norwegian coast, and in Berlin we breathed more freely. If he could withdraw so easily from the centre of things, it was a sign that the storm-clouds that had nearly burst over Serbia were also pa.s.sing off from the Danube valley. Such, I fancy, was the view taken by the British Government, for its Amba.s.sador, who was already away on leave, was not sent back to Berlin. Other diplomats, among them the Russian Amba.s.sador, took their annual holiday as usual. But the Emperor, in the remote fiords of Norway, was all the time posted up in the secret designs of the Vienna Cabinet. The approaching ultimatum to Serbia was telegraphed to him direct by his Amba.s.sador in Vienna, Herr von Tschirsky, a very active worker, who strenuously advocated a policy of hostility towards Russia, and from the first moment had wanted war.

[Sidenote: The Kaiser decides.]

We may a.s.sume that the Emperor, if his mind was not already made up at Kiel, came to a decision during his Norwegian cruise. His departure for the north had been merely a snare, a device for throwing Europe and the Triple Entente off the scent, and for lulling them into a false security. While the world imagined that he was merely seeking to soothe his nerves and recruit his strength with the salt sea breezes, he was biding his time for a dramatic reappearance on the stage of events, allowing the introductory scenes to be played in his absence.

III

During the first half of July, my colleagues and I at Berlin did not live in a fool's paradise. As the deceptive calm caused by Vienna's silence was prolonged, a latent, ill-defined uneasiness took hold of us more and more. Yet we were far from antic.i.p.ating that in the s.p.a.ce of a few days we should be driven into the midst of a diplomatic maelstrom, in which, after a week of intense anguish, we should look on, mute and helpless, at the shipwreck of European peace and of all our hopes.

[Sidenote: Austria's ultimatum to Serbia.]

The ultimatum, sent in the form of a Note by Baron von Giesl to the Serbian Cabinet on July 23, was not disclosed by the Berlin newspapers until the following day, in their morning editions. This bolt from the blue proved more alarming than anything we had dared to imagine. The shock was so unexpected that certain journals, losing their composure, seemed to regard the Vienna Cabinet's arraignment as having overshot the mark. "Austria-Hungary," said the _Vossische Zeitung_, "will have to justify the grave charges that she makes against the Serbian Government and people by publishing the results of the preliminary investigations at Serajevo."

[Sidenote: Russia would defend Serbia.]

My own conviction, shared by several of my colleagues, was that the Austrian and Hungarian statesmen could not have brought themselves to risk such a blow at the Balkan kingdom, without having consulted their colleagues at Berlin and ascertained that the Emperor William would sanction the step. His horror of regicides and his keen sense of dynastic brotherhood might explain why he left his ally a free hand, in spite of the danger of provoking a European conflict. That danger was only too real. Not for one moment did I suppose that Russia would prove so careless of Serbia's fate as to put up with this daring a.s.sault on the latter's sovereignty and independence; that the St. Petersburg Cabinet would renounce the principle of "The Balkans for the Balkan nations," proclaimed to the Duma two months before by M. Sazonoff, in short, that the Russian people would disown the ancient ties of blood that united it with the Slav communities of the Balkan peninsula.

The pessimistic feeling of the diplomatic corps was increased on the following day, the 25th, by the language addressed to it at the Wilhelmstra.s.se. Herren von Jagow and Zimmermann said that they had not known beforehand the contents of the Austrian Note. This was a mere quibble: they had not known its actual wording, I grant, but they had certainly been apprised of its tenor. They hastened to add, by the way, that the Imperial Government approved of its ally's conduct, and did not consider the tone of its communication unduly harsh. The Berlin Press, still with the exception of the Socialist organs, had recovered from its astonishment of the day before; it joined in the chorus of the Vienna and Budapest newspapers, from which it gave extracts, and faced the prospect of a war with perfect calm, while expressing the hope that it would remain localized.

[Sidenote: No signs of peaceful settlement.]

In comparison with the att.i.tude of the German Government and Press, the signs pointing to a peaceful settlement seemed faint indeed. They all came from outside Germany, from the impressions recorded in foreign telegrams. Public opinion in Europe could not grasp the need for such hectoring methods of obtaining satisfaction, when there was no case for refusing discussion on the normal diplomatic lines. It seemed impossible that Count Berchtold should ignore the general movement of reproof which appeared spontaneously everywhere but in Berlin against his ultimatum. A moderate claim would have seemed just; but Serbia could not be asked to accept a demand for so heavy an atonement, couched in a form of such unexampled brutality.

[Sidenote: Key to the situation in Berlin.]